UBB.threads 7.7.2 Release

Version 7.7.2 includes several critical fixes when used with PHP 7.1 and newer, and fixes for MySQL 5.7 and newer. It is highly recommended that you upgrade to version 7.7.2.

Primary Changes In This Release

  • Attached images can now be embedded directly in to posts.
  • Social Profiles have been added.
  • Portal News Body Image (News Block).
  • Portal and Active Topics pages now have an Expander toggle.
  • Identicons for members without avatars or anonymous users.
  • SHA1 calculations for Attached files.
  • Toggle to require HTTPS for hotlinked inlined images and avatars.
  • Lookup Services are now customizable.
  • Saved SQL Commands can now be edited.
  • New Content Transition tool for HTTP => HTTPS.
  • Improved Follow/UnFollow toggle icons.
  • Post List now shows more post details on mobiles.
  • Many updates to post_side and post_top pages.
  • Text editor will now grow to the entire size of a post
  • Banned accounts no longer display profile details to regular users.
  • URL Host for links to external URLs can now be displayed.
  • Breadcrumb not wrapping issue has been fixed.
  • New UBBT77-Dark style is now included.
  • Improved IPv4/IPv6 validation and port handling.
  • Multiple PHP 7 and MySQL 5.7+ code fixes.
  • Cleanup of several scripts, templates, CSS files, and UBB JavaScript files.

Added

  • Attached images can now be embedded directly in to posts from the Attachment Manager by clicking on the attachment’s thumbnail image.
  • Attached images within posts will be hidden from the Grouped and Inlined images set. This reduces redundancy and provides additional features such as placing select attached images behind a spoiler tags, or attaching post styling elements such as an introduction graphic.
    Note: Each embedded image attachment expects that you will use your post to describe your images, therefor they will not display descriptions created within the Attachment Manager. Attachments that are not embedded will continue to use descriptions and will continue to be presented in the lightbox player.
  • Attachment Manager will now display a loading animation until its completely loaded.
  • Social Profiles have been added. They are customizable and can be enabled/disabled from within the "Control Panel > Profile Settings > Social Profiles" page. With Social Profiles, your members can display their additional contact information in their Member Profile page. Your forum’s current data already in the member profiles (pre-7.7.2) will be imported into the new system upon upgrading. Social Profiles are no longer hard-coded. You will now be able to customize or remove each when they change or close doors, such as the most recent shutter of Google+.
  • All Email & URL entries are now checked to have valid Email & URL formatting upon entry.
  • Portal and Active Topics pages now have an Expand/Collapse toggle for long posts.
  • Group Images on profile pages and post author sections now display the group name upon mouse hover-over.
  • Group Images display option now lists the group name next to the image and upon hover-over. (Thanks to M4TT for suggesting this!)
  • Identicons are now an option which can be used for posts made by members without avatars or anonymous users. This can be globally enabled/disabled for members or anonymous posters from within the "Control Panel > Profile Settings > Avatars" page. When disabled, the poster’s avatar, when they have custom avatar set, will be the initial icon. These avatars are only displayed next to their post content, in the author information section.
  • Banned accounts will no longer have the content of their signatures displayed in posts or private topics.
  • Banned account profile page now will only display the top profile section (account stats). Users with access to edit users will see the entire banned user account as before, but the page will be "ghosted."
  • Banned account profiles will display a notice at the top of its profile page stating that the account has been banned.
  • Attachments will now have their SHA1 calculated, stored in the file database, and displayed on the post they are attached to. SHA1 will be ignored for gif, jpg, jpeg png, bmp, and pdf file types. SHA1 will only be added for newly attached files beginning with your UBB.threads 7.7.2. VNC Web Services provides a tool to update the SHA1 of all your previously attached files. Its aptly named, UBB.threads SHA1 Hash Generation Tool.
  • Search will now populate fill in the "Keyword Search Term" entry box from data name/value pair ( ?q=Hello+World ) appended to its URL. This is useful for sites utilizing their own search text input box in headers or content islands prior to landing on your forum’s search page.
  • Author Content items can have their CSS individually customized. From within the Style Editor, each item can be customized, displayed, or hidden, per style. For example, If you dont want to display author-avatars, or author-location next to each post, it can easily be set with a single line of CSS. The non-displaying items will still be available within member profile pages, but it will be hidden from posts. Author detail spacing, alignment, font decoration can also be easily done here. This will affect post_side.tpl and post_top.tpl for both desktop and mobile display.
  • Post/Message "edited wording" can now also have its CSS customized or can be hidden completely.
  • Debugging mode will now also display links to the w3.org HTML and CSS validators, to assist in checking your custom code for validation errors.
  • CP: New forum feature toggle to require HTTPS for hotlinked inlined images. Enabling this feature will only allow hotlinking of images from secure URLs (HTTPS) to be displayed inline. Hotlinked images from insecure URLs (HTTP) will be presented as a clickable link. When you enable this feature, its recommended that you also rebuild your Posts, Signatures, and Private Messages with the Content Rebuilder, to update your older posts. When enabled, users editing their profile are notified, "Remote avatars must be HTTPS" and "Hotlinked signature images must be HTTPS." The Site Permissions editor (CP) for those permissions will also display a notice if this enabled feature.
  • CP: Member Editor now displays an HTML5 color-picker when choosing the Display Name Color. Color HEX is still available to be manually entered but must be the full 6-digit HEX color code, preceded with a pound symbol (#).
  • CP: Member Editor now displays Group Images next to the Group Membership title.
  • CP: Member Editor now displays a badge next to the Group Image if the Member is displaying that Group Image on their profile.
  • CP: Portal News Body Image (News Block). When enabled, this will search the news item for an image. The portal news item will be displayed as a "News Block," with the image on the left and the news post text to the right of it. Text is truncated, line breaks and HTML are stripped, and links will be retained. If no image is found, the news item is displayed normally.
  • CP: Portal News Expander hides (collapses) a portion of the news content and adds an "expand" link so that the text can be viewed by the user if they wish. This feature can be set to a number of characters at which the contents will be sliced into two parts with the option to expand; or it can be left empty to never slice news items, and always display the full news item.
  • CP: Features > Lookup Services are now customizable. These helper services are "URL Prefix For User Submitted Location Lookups" and "URL Prefix For IP Address Lookups." These can be customized to best work with your site region, or desired service provider. Leaving the fields blank will return the display of these items to their classic text-only, non-URL format.
  • CP: An "Expand All Sections" button has been added to Permissions Editors.
  • CP: Display of URL Host for links to external URLs can now be toggled from the Features Settings page. Default is off.
  • CP: Set default Client Encoding to UTF8 can now be toggled from the Features Settings page. Default is off for forum updates, and on for new forum installs.
  • CP: Database Tools > SQL Command page now allows you to edit previously stored queries.
  • CP: Content Rebuilder can now prune orphaned posts.
  • CP: Content Rebuilder now lists the number of pruned items when rebuilding orphaned private messages or orphaned posts.
  • CP: New Content Transition tool. This tool will update all existing Main Forum URL references from HTTP to HTTPS (SSL). This action includes posts, private topics, profile comments, signatures, and user avatars. This performs the actions described in the OP of this thread. Preview:
    http://www.ubbcentral.com/forums -> https://www.ubbcentral.com/forums

Changed

  • Follow/UnFollow toggle icons for users, topics, forums have been updated and are now consistent across the software.
  • Post List has been updated to show more post details on mobile layout.
  • Active Topics has been updated to clean up its presentation and be consistent with the portal’s post layout.
  • Lots of updates to the post_side and post_top pages to reduce any code duplication and improve post presentation.
  • Member Homepage entries now require full protocol to be entered. No more assuming the URL will be HTTP. Though, previously entered homepages without protocols will be assumed to be HTTP, and upon their first edit they will automatically be updated to such.
  • Account Profile editor now checks if a valid formatted email address, password, and if matching confirmations of each are entered, before letting the member save changes.
  • New User Sign-up now checks if a login name, display name, valid formatted email address, password, and if matching confirmations of each are entered, before letting the member continue to the next page.
  • Profile Editor "Avatar (Profile Picture)" section has been updated with;
    • Radio buttons for NONE and STOCK will now automatically highlight when they are being used.
    • If not using a system assigned avatar, you will get the warning about removing your preferred avatar if you select it.
    • A broken avatar image no longer displays when there is no avatar. That code bug is now squashed.
    • Cleaned up the "browse for file" button presentation.
    • If the forum requires https and allows remote avatars, you will get a warning of this requirement.
  • Post/Message Text Editor is no longer limited to a height of 730px. It will now display to the entire length of the user’s post content.
  • ShoutChat box received some minor language updates to be more user friendly.
  • Post poll results received minor display updates.
  • Failed login/bad password message time has been updated from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.
  • Attachment Manager has been given a slight face-lift.
  • Attachment Manager can now be closed by clicking outside of its window.
  • SECURITY UPDATE: Fetch IP library has been updated to clean up any ports, comma separated lists, and perform additional IPv4/IPv6 validation & handling. In the uncommon case where a valid IP address cannot be determined, the connection will be refused with an "Invalid IP address received" notice.
  • CP: Member Editor now displays if the account has been banned (and how long) across all tabs.
  • CP: Member Editor now displays the bottom action tabs across all tabs.
  • CP: All forum path settings have been moved into a single settings pages. Master Settings > Database & Paths: Paths & URLs.
  • CP: Allowed attachment file extensions settings have been moved to the Master Settings > Attachments page.
  • CP: Style Editor previews have been updated to be consistent with the template updates as of 7.7.2.
  • CP: Exporting just styles will now use just their style name. Exporting styles with their wrapper will continue to include "_with_wrapper" in their file name.
  • CP: Many common field entries have been given an acceptable number range for content entered to them. An error message will be displayed if the entry is beyond that range, and you will be prevented from submitting your changes until it is corrected.
  • CP: Database Tools > SQL Command page now displays saved queries exactly as they were entered, complete with new lines and multiple space/tab indentations.
  • CP: Database Tools > Information page now displays the Database Engine and Collation used for each table.
  • CP: When debugging is enabled, the database commands will be displayed for some pages which execute database actions.
  • Query optimization to make use of proper indexing for large forums with over three-million posts (Big thanks to SD for tracking this and providing simple code resolutions!)
  • Query rewrite for forums which have members who have over ninety-thousand posts. "Not having this change can bring a board to its knees." (Another big thanks to SD for tracking this and providing simple code resolutions!)
  • SQL Error output display is now easier to read. If the error was generated by a manual SQL Query Command within the Control Panel, the original query will be displayed exactly as you wrote it, along with the easier to read error message.
  • Updated FontAwesome library from 5.6.3 to version 5.9.0.
  • Updated jQuery library from 3.3.1 to version 3.4.1.
  • Updated Lightbox from 2.10.0 to version 2.11.0.
  • Updated TinyMCE from 4.9.2 to version 5.0.7.
  • SQL query updates to remove excessive (unused) column requests.
  • Cleanup of several scripts, templates, CSS files, and UBB JavaScript files.

Fixed

  • Private Topics (PT/PM) now respects "Display Member Avatars With Posts," and will hide them when disabled.
  • Fixed "Display Avatars With Posts" setting for member accounts and forum member default settings. All variations of author avatars can now be toggled off.
  • Group Colors are now correctly displayed for post author names being displayed on mobile devices.
  • Fixed "OP" displaying on all replies made by anonymous users when the topic is created by an anonymous user. (Thanks to M4TT for reporting this bug!)
  • Search code has been updated to avoid some common Boolean search errors.
  • Breadcrumb not wrapping issue has been fixed. (Thanks to PianoWorld for reporting this bug!)
  • The modern Hop-To Menu (in toolbar above post) and the classic Jump-Box Menu (footer of posts) lists will now truncate titles correctly.
  • Members can no longer "Follow User" for themselves within the Post Author menu.
  • User groups with "Become User" access, can no longer "Become User" for themselves within the Post Author menu.
  • Fixed missing "Edit User" button in the Profile Display page for Admins and Moderators viewing their own profile.
  • Fixed missing "Edit User" menu item in Private Message author menu.
  • Fixed missing "Become User" menu item in Private Message author menu.
  • Fixed Numbered Lists (CSS and BBCode) within posts.
  • Fixed/hide display of social contact fields for users who have not logged in since UBB.threads 7.6.0 release date of 2017-02-15. This is the date when YAHOO/AIM/ICQ/MSN fields were re-purposed instead of being disposed of, as they should have been.
  • Fixed display of ShoutChat in the User Menu for users who do not have access to ShoutChat (Thanks to whk for reporting this bug!)
  • Fixed display of Member List in the User Menu for users who do not have access to view the member list.
  • For forums which allow and manually approve Display Name changes, the emailed link now forwards directly to the member manager page.
  • Validating email address entry will now use a combination of html5 "input type=email" and php filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL). Previously this task was done with regex, which was very messy and did not account for TLD of more than 4 characters. (Thanks to GregSan for reporting this bug!)
  • Inline Moderation: Moving topics from one forum to another, and leaving a pointer to the old location, now works as expected. (Thanks to BlackMale for reporting this bug!) The link to the new post location is now fixed and works as expected.
  • Active Topics will now use blank.gif when displaying a post without a post icon.
  • "Remove nofollow in post content links if the link has the main forum URL in it" introduced in UBBT759 now works as described.
  • Viewing Private Messages when the discussion has reached its maximum number of replies will display a notice, and no longer displays the quick-reply box, or reply buttons.
  • Members attempting to create new Private Topics (PT/PM) when their account does not have permission, no longer displays an "action disabled" message. The member is now told their account requires a higher access level.
  • Fetch IP library has been updated to resolve an issue where many of your site visitors could be detected as having the same IP address, due to your website being setup [by your webhost] with a proxy IP address the same as your server IP address. (Big thanks to Gizmo for his continued testing and updating of this library!)
  • CP: Fixed Member Editor not allowing updates due to Member Homepage URL not conforming with HTML5 input URL requirements.
  • CP: Member Manager will no longer attempt to perform a GEO-IP lookup on IP addresses from 127.0.0.1 or ::1.
  • CP: Members > Add New Member. Field for password is now a password type so Its entry will be hidden as it is entered.
  • CP: Subscription date modifications have been corrected to use proper date formats of "YYYY-MM-DD" rather than relying on language strings, which vary with each language. (Thanks to BlackMale for reporting this bug!)
  • Fixed SQL insert commands which assumed table columns titles would always be in a set order.
  • Fixed MySQLi persistent connections in the MySQLi library (Thanks to mmem700 for reporting this bug and Phillipp for his suggested fix!)
  • Fixed "Too few arguments" errors when email notices are sent. This affected notifications of: manual post/forum moderation, manual new user approvals, and mailing threads. Error only affected forums running PHP 7.1 and newer. (Thanks to Zarzal for being the first to report these!)
  • MySQL 5.7+ code fixes to resolve ambiguous GROUP BY clauses. This fix means you no longer must reconfiguring your SQL MODE settings by adding "TRADITIONAL" or removing "ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY" from it, for UBB.threads.
  • The unused HTML5 helper (html5shiv.js) for IE9 era browsers has been removed.
  • The unused CSS3 helper (css3-mediaqueries.js) for IE9 era browsers has been removed.
  • Several minor HTML fixes throughout the templates.

UBB.threads 7.7.2 has been released and is now available to download in the Member Area.